Michael Carrick apologises for Manchester United display

The 800 travelling United fans were heard chanting “we’re fucking shit” at the end of the game, which was Midtjylland’s first win in 10 games and first match in two months. Van Gaal, who was recently booed at Old Trafford, said the fans’ anger was justified.

“The fans can criticise”.

“I think I expected more from them but we gave them what they didn’t expect”, he told BT Sport. A stone-faced Vice Chairman Ed Woodward left the stands wondering why his team, which spent £250 million-plus due to Louis Van Gaal’s prescriptions, have failed to improve on the field.

But Carrick stressed: “You can talk about injuries but, irrespective of that, we can’t make any excuses”.

What depressed Van Gaal was the quality of United’s second-half performance against a Midtjylland side whose last competitive game had been in December.

The Red half of United are behind their rivals City in the race for the top four spot but are six points behind them with 12 games to go.

Louis van Gaal’s side need to take the Europa League seriously this season, as the competition represents arguably their best opportunity of securing a return to next season’s Champions League. “With a performance and a result like that we’re going home very disappointed”. We scored a good goal and then it’s just not good enough, we haven’t played well enough, we didn’t really kick on. “Then they scored and it was a little bit unnecessary in my opinion”.

“I think it is the law of Murphy”, he said, referring to Murphy’s Law, which states that “whatever can go wrong, will go wrong”.

Sisto, one of the goalscorers for Midtjylland last night, feels the away goal has tilted the balance of the tie towards Manchester United despite his side getting the victory, but believes anything could still happen at Old Trafford. “I have explained that we have to cope with a list of 14 injured players and that’s not easy”, said the Dutchman. I don’t know if he’s got a lot to bring back but certainly 13 injuries has been a nightmare for him.

“But we are not here to just enjoy the moment or to get experience – we are here to try to get through the next round”.